


Inattentive

by deathwailart



Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Drabble, Gen, Green Pact, Implied Cannibalism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-17
Updated: 2014-07-17
Packaged: 2018-02-09 07:51:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1974849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathwailart/pseuds/deathwailart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If she closes her eyes, she can almost pretend it's home.</p>
<p>Written for the 30 day drabble challenge: inattentive</p>
            </blockquote>





	Inattentive

There are days and weeks where she simply drifts. Where she shuns each and every settlement that's more than a camp or perhaps a solitary little home or empty watch tower she's just happened to clear. She loses track of time and herself in those days. Eats only when hunger gnaws at her belly and trades with the Khajit for salt and honey because she can't eat so much meat on her own and it would be wasteful to just leave it. Deer and elk she can trade, bear and wolf and cat and whatever else she can use for bait or for potions and poisons and she finds places with tanning racks and loses herself in the mindless process of turning pelt into leather. If there's a forge she makes armour, bracers and boots and helms mostly and then creeps into holds again, fills her purse with gold and steals away again.  
  
She stays off the main roads. Climbs up the mountains on hand and knee at times when the wind burns her eyes and the snow blinds her. Gets good at catching all sorts of fishing when she swims through the rivers, changing direction on a whim.  
  
When dragons roar overhead she shrinks back into caves, peers out with narrowed eyes until they grow tired of her and creeps out again. Maybe she takes an odd job or two but for the most it's just her and the countless miles of Skyrim beneath her feet. If she tips her head back on the days when the sun is warm enough to have her sweating beneath her leathers – very rare, it's a cold land, cold and hard and bitter – she can fool herself into thinking she's back in Falinesti. The illusion never lasts. The wind picks up. A Nord's voice carries over to her. The trees here do not walk. This is not home, it will never be home.  
  
She drifts to Riften, takes jobs, pawns and sells what she plucks from crawling through towers and caves and mines. It's mindless work. Hiding with her bow to pick them off one by one, creeping close to stick a knife in their backs. Her pockets are overflowing with jewels most of the time but she barely notices the looks when she drops handfuls of amethysts, rubies, sapphires and garnets into Tonilia's hands.  
  
It's almost pleasant when she's alone. Her and a camp fire, a tent she's made herself from pelts and old mammoth tusks and ribs. Nestled with a good vantage point in the remains of an old giant's camp she cleared out. She roasts meat over the fire she makes herself, carves bone arrows, curls up in thick furs that smell of the wild. She doesn't smile because she never really smiled much anyway, even when she was a girl, but her face is no longer twisted into a strained grimace when she meanders from Falkreath to Dawnstar or when she's spending days on the trail of deer, taking out almost a whole herd if she puts her mind to it. She loses track of the Thalmor patrols she cuts down in the dark of night, letting their prisoners run; Thalmor coats, she finds, make for very good tents and Eola never turns one down when Brónach finally rejoins the world with one slung over her shoulder.


End file.
